Food products such as deli meats, salad greens, etc. are frequently displayed in open front refrigerated display cases that enable the customer to access and remove products without requiring doors to be opened and closed. A typical form of such a display case is illustrated in the Weikel et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,959,560. That patent illustrates a vertically oriented cabinet having bottom top and back walls, and an open front. A plurality of levels of displayed products are mounted from the back wall, in the illustrated display case, by means of peg hooks. Refrigerated air is directed behind the back wall by means of a suitable fan, and outlets are provided in the back wall to allow the refrigerated air to flow out of the back wall and toward the displayed products.
If the refrigerated air issuing forwardly from the back wall of the display case is not properly guided, it will tend, because of its higher density, to flow downward before reaching some of the displayed product items located near the front of the display case. To deal with this problem, it is known to provide various forms of baffles to keep the refrigerated air from flowing downward before it reaches outer portions of the product display. In some cases, where the display case incorporates shelving on which the products are displayed, the shelves themselves serve as the necessary baffles. In other cases, such as in the above mentioned Weikel et al. '560 patent, where peg hooks or the like are used to display the product, separate means, such as baffles need to be provided.
Other arrangements for providing baffles are shown in, for example, the Garfinkle U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,402,897 and 5,788,089.
Known arrangements for providing air-directing baffles in refrigerated display cases have various shortcomings, which makes their use difficult or inconvenient. Frequently, arrangements such as twisted wires are utilized to hold the baffles in position, which tends to make their installation cumbersome and inconvenient. More importantly, it makes periodic removal of the baffles for cleaning very inconvenient, such that the important chore of maintaining clean baffles, in order to have clean, attractive and sanitary displays, is likely to be done on a relatively infrequent basis.